September Cultural Highlights 2 TV programmes get 5 Stars

October 3, 2025

Explore our September cultural highlights including 5 Star television

Television

Death of a Showjumper  Sky Documentaries

★★★★★

21-year-old Katie Simpson has committed suicide by hanging. However, journalist, Tanya Fowles is suspicious because of the person who found her and because it was so out of character. Her attempts to get the police to investigate were dismissed despite her drawing attention to the fact that the person who found Katie was Jonathan Cresswell, a convicted abuser, who lived with Simpson and her sister who happened to be his partner.

Fowles contacted detective sergeant James Brannigan – the other hero here – as Fowles she remembered he had once cracked a domestic abuse murder without a body. This in some respects is a depressing tale of a charmer who manipulated women as well as the local community. Fowles and especially Brannigan put their careers at risk driven by their utter belief in the guilt of Cresswell and this elevates the three-part documentary far and above the usual true crime stories.

The Girlfriend  Prime Video

★★★★

At the centre of this psychological drama is Laura, played by Robin Wright who also directs, a wealthy gallery owner who is an open relationship with her husband and enjoys a close to incestuous relationship with her son Daniel. Enter the girlfriend – with a past and demeanour that raises the suspicions of Laura and we know from the opening title sequence is not going to end well.

This is a well-trodden path but there’s enough about The Girlfriend and it’s various nuances – class distinctions, the power of money, the different kinds of love we are capable of, how liberal parents should be, how emotions can warp under pressure, how desperate we can become to be believed, and how we distinguish between ambition and greed, need and desire – to merit a high rating.

The Hack ITV1 ITVX

★★★

A seven-part drama about Guardian journalist Nick Davies’s investigation into the scandal of the phone-hacking perpetrated by various members of Rupert Murdoch’s News International, which led to seven major police investigations, nearly 40 convictions and the closing of the News of the World.

This is oddly put together, many asides to camera by Davies (David Tennant) and dreamlike sequences are often distracting. What it does do well is show how hard it was to bring this  story to national consciousness as victims were reluctant to come forward for fear of retribution from the News of the World coupled with a lack of interest from the National Press. It’s worth a watch and you wonder how have standards fallen so low. 

Inspector Gerri  More4

★★★★★

Although this eight part series (each case takes two episodes) has certain conventions – a troubled detective (he was adopted) and emotional entanglements, this Italian drama set in Puglia has plenty going for it.

Inspector Gerri (Giulio Beranek)  is very much centre stage. There is something captivating in Beranek’s performance – he plays a tormented soul but with a light touch. There is a sense that still waters run deep. While he’s always insistent about his theories, Gerri is not a detective full of machismo. Empathy and observation are in his arsenal.

A well-crafted cast and stories that offer misdirection, twists, turns, red herrings and romantic complications, make this a series well worth watching.

America’s Team – The Gambler and The Hustler Netflix

★★★★★

There has been a glut of similar sporting documentaries over the past decade, and Michael Jordan’s Last Dance has stood at the top of the list.

In the opinion of many it now has a challenger. America’s Team is a gritty portrayal of the rise and fall of a sports dynasty that is more revelatory than one could ever expect in an era of sanitised sports stories.

It starts when oilman, Jerry Jones buys the Dallas Cowboys, sacks a much-loved coach and installs Jimmy Johnson, someone with an ego as big as his own. They enjoyed unprecedented success, but it was never going to last as they dispute who deserved the most credit for the team’s success and the two have been fighting over their legacy almost ever since. What is remarkable is how both protagonists, who always thought they were right, in the end admit to their own failings.

Players are just as honest when telling their parts in this story and that makes it all the more fascinating. As one player puts it  “each of us has at least two of us in all of us. That person you show everybody. And that person that you never show anybody.”

It’s an interesting time for these types of programmes as documentaries of a season in sport have transcended beyond followers and yet the makers will insist on revelatory details. Protect the brand or increase the audience will be the dilemma.

This programme has set a benchmark. 

Film

One Battle After Another General release

★★★★★

A film that’s tipped for Oscar glory and could be a multiple winner – Best Picture/Director/Leading and Supporting Actor and Best score.

Will it deserve it? Based on current contenders most definitely yes.

Director, Paul Thomas Anderson has adapted Thomas Pichin’s novel Inherent Vice and assembled an all-star cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio. For the first 15-20 minutes you may wonder what’s going on as revolutionaries attack migrant holding prisons on the Mexican border; Bob (DiCaprio) is less important than his comrades, especially his partner Perfidia (Teyana Taylor). Another to fall under her spell is Col Steven Lockjaw – played by Sean Penn – whom she humiliates when they attack a military compound.

Perfidia betrays the group and goes into witness protection. 16 years later and Bob is raising his daughter, Willa, as a single dad. They are separated when dark forces led by Lockjaw track them down.

This is a film with many layers, great imagery, is laugh out loud at times and has original foot and car chases. The acting is superb and the soundtrack by Johnny Greenwood is integral to the pace of the film.

 It’s a film where no sooner have you left the theatre than you want to go straight back in.

Books

White City Dominic Nolan

★★★

Set in the early 1950’s, White City, set in London, revolves around the biggest heist in British history (actually happened) and two fathers who failed to return from the robbery.

Young Addie Rowe, daughter of a missing Jamaican postman and drunk ex-club hostess mother, struggles to care for her little sister in a dilapidated Brixton rooming house.

Claire Martin, increasingly resentful of roads not taken, strives to make the rent and keep her teenage son Ray from falling under unsavoury influences in Notting Dale.

A sense of what London was like during these times and the tensions that come to a head when worlds collide in 1958, are well described in a book that holds the attention but is not a standout.

The South Tash Aw

★★★

Booker Prize long listed, The South revolves around two boys over the course of one summer. This is a search for personal freedom and self-actualisation not just for the boys but for the two families as well.

Poverty plays a key role in what is intended to be the first of four instalments. Whether you buy into it depends on how committed you are to the characters.

Three Daughters of Eve Elif Shafak

★★★★

Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground—an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past—and a love—Peri had tried desperately to forget.

The narrative switches from Peri’s time as a student at Oxford University and the dinner party. Big themes are dealt with – God, culture and obsession – whilst you wait for the mentioned scandal that blighted lives to materialise.

Last month we reviewed Shafak’s There are Rivers in The Sky and this book doesn’t quite measure up to the rating we gave that book.

Check out our other monthly cultural highlights